


Imagine a World Without You

by crowning_glory



Series: ❧ mcnamawyer [1]
Category: Heathers: The Musical - Murphy & O'Keefe
Genre: Angst, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Panic Attacks, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 14:56:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17830730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowning_glory/pseuds/crowning_glory
Summary: ♕They're dead. Chandler and Kurt and Ram are dead.





	Imagine a World Without You

**Author's Note:**

> **TW:**  
>  →Referenced suicides.  
> →Panic attacks.  
> →Suicide attempt.  
> 

For the past day Heather has felt as if something isn’t right. It starts on Sunday morning, a sudden wave of dread crashing over her as she sits in the church pews, a hymn book in her lap. She doesn’t know what the feeling is about, why it’s happening, but it persists throughout the day and she’s unable to shake it even after sleep.

 

It’s confirmed that something is off as soon as she reaches Duke’s car waiting at the end of her driveway. The other girl is taking a drag from a newly-lit cigarette, rolling her window down as she exhales. She looks tired, and her eyes are puffy as if she’s been crying. She’d never be seen like this unless something is seriously off. Duke glares at Heather as she stands with the door open, eyebrows furrowed in concern, and she wants to ask what’s wrong, but the steely look in Duke’s eyes makes her forget her question and move, chucking her backpack onto the back seat as she climbs in without a word.

 

Duke doesn’t talk to her as they drive to Chandler’s, but that’s not abnormal—Heather knows that she’s not Duke’s favourite person and that the girl only gives her a ride to school because Chandler told her to—but what is is that they drive straight past Chandler’s house.

 

A glance from Duke deters Heather from asking any questions, similar to earlier, but her stomach sinks. Something has happened to Chandler, and Heather knows it. She reaches back for her backpack, pulls her phone from the front pocket and dials Chandler’s number, hoping futilely that there would be an answer. There isn’t. It rings and rings and then Heather’s voice is demanding her to leave a voicemail.

 

Heather hangs up before the beep, letting out a shaky breath. Chandler never missed a call, not even at four in the morning when Heather’s mind wouldn’t shut off long enough for her to fall asleep. If she was ill she would have answered, whining about how bad she felt and how her parents couldn’t take her to the doctor’s office until after work. And it sounds kinda stupid because she could just be busy, she could have lost her phone and there’s, overall, a multitude of reasons that she might not have picked up. Heather tries to comfort herself with this as Duke drives, scolds herself for always jumping to conclusions, but despite this the feeling of dread that started on Sunday is just getting worse and worse and as much as she doesn't want to admit it, Heather knows that she's right and something is wrong. She's known it since Sunday morning.

 

She’s aware of the stares and the whispers as they meet up with Veronica at the school entrance before making their way to Ms. Flemming’s classroom. Veronica doesn’t look too good either, similar to Duke, and Heather’s stomach starts to hurt. She winces, leaves the classroom before roll call with a promise to be right back, and ducks into the bathroom where she leans against the sinks and takes a few deep breaths before swallowing a painkiller, running her comb through her hair, and leaving the bathroom, chin held high as people stare.

 

The words “Heather Chandler is dead” catch her completely off guard.

 

She'd known it was bad, but not _that_ bad. 

 

Ms. Flemming is stood at the front of the class, a stack of paper held in her hands as she says the words nonchalantly. Heather feels as if she can’t breathe and she wants to get up and leave but she can’t will herself to move. She's rooted to her seat. Ms. Flemming pauses at her desk, squeezing her shoulder in what Heather assumes is supposed to be a reassuring way, before handing her a copy of the paper that she was holding.

 

Chandler's note. 

 

Her eyes scan the words, filling with tears as she starts to process the news. Her hands are shaking by the time that she gets halfway through, and she has to hold back sobs. She’s aware that, even though her best friend has just died, she’s still subject to the scrutiny of the other students and, looking over at Veronica and Duke, the pair of them are composed even though they’re going through the exact same thing as Heather. 

 

Although Heather suspects that they’ve known about it for longer than she has.

 

So she tries to stay strong. And it's wrong, she knows, hell her best friend is _dead_ , but she can't have her reputation ruined by blubbering like a baby. She's worked too hard to get where she is to have it all dashed by a few tears.

 

Soon enough the whispers in the classroom turn into conversations and when she’s sure that nobody is watching her, Heather whirls around in her seat to face Veronica.

 

“I—I didn’t know!” she says hurriedly, her voice trembling and thick with tears. “I didn’t know she felt like this. I didn’t—she didn’t say anything about it! What if—”

 

“Woah. Woah, H,” Veronica cuts her off, voice and hands steady as she gets up from her desk and crouches by Heather’s. “Don’t even finish that sentence, okay? You didn’t—couldn’t have—known. This isn’t your fault and don’t even entertain the fault that it was—”

 

“You don’t know that!” Heather wails, and suddenly all eyes are on her. She forces herself to take more deep breaths, screwing her eyes shut. Veronica’s hand rest on her arm, her thumb rubbing her blazer sleeve. Then, softer, as people’s conversations resume.“You don’t—this isn’t—”

 

She’s interrupted by Ms. Flemming speaking and somehow manages the rest of the class as they all reminisce about Chandler. Her stomach hurts worse and worse with every person’s memory, and as soon as the bell rings she grabs her backpack and dashes from the room, making a beeline for the bathroom.

 

Veronica finds her a couple of minutes later, locked in a stall and bawling her eyes out. Heather is shaking so bad that she can barely unlock the door, but she does and Veronica's there.

 

“They’re cancelling school for the day,” she says, wrapping an arm around Heather’s shoulders. “Duke’s already gone home, but my mom can give you a ride if you need one.”

 

Heather nods, burying her face in Veronica’s shoulder.

 

* * *

 

She cries all the way home. Veronica sits with her in the back, a box of tissues handed to them by Veronica’s mom on her lap. Heather leans against her, dabbing at her cheeks as she tries to get herself under control. Mrs. Sawyer mumbles about how much of a tragedy it is as they pull up to Heather’s house, and she gets out to give the girl a hug when she stops the car.

 

“You were always the Heather I liked the most,” she says when they pull apart. Veronica lets out an annoyed yell and Heather just stands there, not knowing what to say to that.

 

“Thanks for the ride,” she managed to choke out before she starts up her driveway and enters the house.

 

Her mom is waiting for her as soon as she enters, worry evident in her eyes as she looks Heather up and down. She pulls her into a hug and Heather cries until she can’t anymore before excusing herself up to her room where she locks the door and sinks to the floor.

 

There’s anger bubbling deep inside of her; angry that she hadn’t known before like Duke and Veronica, anger that Chandler hadn’t talked to her about anything that she was feeling, anger that Chandler even felt that way in the first place, anger that Chandler had left her. She lets out a scream, pulling her shoe off and throwing it at the pinboard mounted on her wall covered in polaroids of her and the others. There’s a crash as it falls to the floor and then she dry sobs, curling up into a ball on her carpet as her mom knocks on her door, trying to find out what’s wrong.

 

As if she doesn't already know.

 

She doesn’t remember falling asleep, but she wakes up to the front door slamming and her father’s voice calling her name. She doesn’t move, rubbing her hand over her plush carpet as she waits for him to leave her alone.

 

Heather can’t face anyone. Not yet. She needs time to breathe. Time to focus. Once her dad retreats back downstairs she gets up and moves into her bathroom.

 

She takes off her makeup, washes her face, and shucks her clothes off before heading to her closet to grab the comfiest set of pyjamas that she owns. Then she retrieves her packet of goldfish crackers, eats a handful and climbs into bed.

 

She stares at the ceiling for more than three hours, wishing herself to sleep.

 

Instinctively she reaches for her phone, and has just pulled up Chandler’s contact when she remembers what happened. Her phone falls from her hands, getting lost somewhere in her quilt as she tries not to cry, tossing and turning as she attempts to fall asleep.

 

* * *

 

Heather hasn’t recovered from the first suicide when she hears about the second and third. Kurt and Ram. Ram and her boyfriend. He’d been over almost every night after Chandler’s death, never making fun of her as she cried—unlike Duke who’s rude comments only added to Heather’s pain—and the one night he wasn’t…

 

She finds herself in the bathroom again, and Veronica's there. She almost feels guilty; there’s no tears on Kurt’s part and no sobbing. She’s just empty. Empty and exhausted.

 

Veronica’s mom drops her back home again, and Heather can barely make it to the front door with how tired she feels. It’s a mammoth task to get up the stairs and all the way to her bedroom, but she manages it and collapses on top of her covers. She drifts in and out of sleep and doesn’t move until her alarm goes off in the morning.

 

Her mom stays home the next day, cancelling a few meetings, and forces Heather to get up, shower and eat. Heather sits at the breakfast table, staring at the toast slices in front of her for a while before she can muster the energy to eat them. She almost falls asleep sitting up, and her mom helps her to the sofa once she’s finished eating. Heather is glad that her mom is so understanding, and she cries as her mom runs her hands through her hair and sings her back to a dreamless sleep and a needed respite.

 

The next few days are rough. Heather attends her second funeral in too short of a time, and has to sit in the pews and listen to her boyfriend being called gay. And it makes sense, she thinks, because although she knew that he loved her, it always felt as if he was hiding something. She’d always worried that she was being paranoid, but maybe she wasn’t. And it's something that she's been thinking a lot about because Heather thinks she might be gay too. Yet, she'd dated Kurt. She did love him. Really, she did. But not in that way. Maybe it was the same for him.

 

Still, it isn’t pleasant to listen to, and she leaves the funeral feeling even heavier than before. But she pushes through it, and gets into her dad’s car, and accompanies him to a business meeting where she waits awkwardly in the reception and tries not to think about her dead friends and boyfriends too much.

 

* * *

 

Returning to school is hard. Duke doesn’t hesitate in taking Chandler’s place. She’s kinder to the other students but meaner to Heather. She doesn’t give her a ride anymore, she wears Chandler’s scrunchie, she criticizes and demeans her any chance she gets.

 

Veronica takes the place of Kurt, comforting her as much as she can. She sleeps over most nights, the two of them a tangle of limbs when the sun rises and Heather’s alarm goes off. She makes things slightly more bearable, and Heather is thankful for that.

 

So, so thankful.

 

And she's starting to think that she really is gay.

 

Veronica sleeps over the night before the assembly, and they talk about it as they're getting ready. It’s been in the works for a while, but finally the day has arrived and the school is buzzing. Heather herself is quite looking forward to it as well, (although her saying that she is results in a eye roll and a muttered insult from Duke). She thinks that it’s a message that everyone needs to hear; suicide isn’t the answer. Ever. But when, at the very assembly, she’s thrust into the spotlight everything around her starts to crumble.

 

Her mouth is running faster than her mind and by the time she realises that it’s a bad idea to share, the words are tumbling out of her mouth. She’s blurting everything out on live television and it’s both cathartic and terrifying.

 

But then Duke’s fingers are gripping onto her arm, pulling her from her thoughts and she falters, the anger and fury in Duke’s eyes scaring her.

 

Then come the taunts. The futile yells to stop from Ms. Flemming. They’re laughing. They’re all laughing. There’s fingers being jabbed in her direction, bared teeth and sharp insults and the lights are too bright and Heather can’t breathe and suddenly she’s running, shoving her way through the crowds and into the empty hallways, tears streaming down her cheek as she runs and runs until she’s in the bathroom, stood over the sinks.

 

She fumbles in her backpack for the bottle of prescription pills she'd swiped from the back of her parents' medicine cabinet.

 

Maybe Heather was wrong. Suicide was the answer sometimes.

 

Her hands are shaking once more as she tugs and twists the cap, the jeering and taunts echoing around her as she attempts to open the cap. She pauses for a second, trying to block the noises out, but when she can’t she returns to attempting to open the cap, getting more and more desperate as the clock ticks.

 

Eventually she gets it open. The voices quiet, her mind goes blank and she tips the pills into her hand. She meets her own gaze in the mirror, and there’s a second where she thinks that she sees Chandler behind her. The ache in her chest grows stronger when she blinks and the girl in red disappears, and she closes her eyes, sends up a prayer that she’ll be reunited with those that she loves, and tips her head back, stuffing the pills into her mouth.

 

But then the bathroom door slams open and Veronica is there.

 

The pills are scattered on the floor and Veronica is there.

 

There’s a bitter taste in Heather’s mouth and Veronica is there.

 

Heather’s legs give out beneath her and Veronica is there.

 

Chandler is dead. Ram is dead. Kurt is dead. But Veronica is there.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! ♥
> 
> ⋆[pinterest.](https://pin.it/axdt62ze5gutav)  
>  ⋆[twitter.](https://twitter.com/crowning_gloryy)


End file.
